In the past, I would send an email and it would disappear into a black hole. I wouldn’t know if it was received, opened, or viewed. Now I have visibility into how my audience is interacting with my email, which allows me time to communicate better (I don’t want to pester), and if I haven’t received a response but I know that the recipient is viewing my email, it could be a cue to try a different approach.

4. Know When Your Recipient Is On the Move or Your Email Is Being Forwarded

Location information can change your entire perspective on a sent email.

Take it from this Yesware user who sent an email to a client in New York:

Last week, I had sent out an email to a client as a follow up. It included a presentation on one of our new products. I got the notification that he’d opened the email, and I got the notification that he had looked at the presentation, which was awesome. He’s in New York, and it said he opened it in New York.

Almost immediately after that, I got notifications that the attachment was being opened but in Atlanta, and by multiple people. I could tell that, because the client’s headquarters is in Atlanta, he had forwarded it to his leadership team, and there’s no way I would have gotten that information if it wasn’t for Yesware.

Not only does email tracking show you forwards to headquarters, but it also tips you off when your recipient is on vacation or has just returned.

This way, if you’re waiting on a time-sensitive answer, an overdue deliverable, or a contract sign-off, you’ll stay up to date on their whereabouts.

5. See What Devices They’re Reading On (So You Know Where to Reach Out)

If you call a desk phone and no one’s there, did you really call at all?

Email tracking shows you what device they’re on (desktop vs. mobile) so you know whether to follow up via desk or cell phone.

6. Start Testing Your Send Times to Get More Opens

You could write the perfect email, but if you’re sending at the wrong time it could get buried in an inbox. We wanted to change that.

In the process of figuring out the best time to send an email, we looked at how reply rates varied across major metropolitan areas around the world when sent at different times (more on those findings here).

In turn, we made a free tool that shows a recommended time to send an email based on location.

You write your messages upfront and then schedule it with send criteria for when you want it to go out.

The best part?

You can schedule each stage to go out to multiple people at once, scaling the output of your writing. Users simply upload a CSV file (or Salesforce list) as their recipient list and include merge fields in the email body that personalize to each person.

From there, you can add secondary stages by drafting new messages or inserting existing follow-up templates (try one of ours).

See who opened, clicked, or replied to emails in the Yesware Campaigns module.

10. Find Out Where People Are Spending Time on Each Page of Your Attachments

Want to see how engaged your audience is with your content?

Presentation tracking peels back the curtain for any PDF, PPT, or PPTX document.

If you use Yesware, simply add your attachment using the green paper clip icon in your compose window:

After you send, you can see who’s looking at your presentation (and for how long) by clicking “View Report” in Email Tracking.

Reporting shows:

How many people accessed the presentation

The total number of views it received

The average time spent viewing

You can also see how long it’s been since each person viewed and their completion rate:

The data puts hard numbers on what works, so you can improve your message by focusing on what’s working.

11. Send Their Opens and Replies to CRM Automatically (So You Don’t Have to Each Time)

1. Real-Time Desktop Notifications

The moment a Yesware users’ email is opened, we send an instant desktop notification letting them know.

Bottom line: You don’t need to have gmail open; you’ll see the push notification wherever you are on your computer. Every notification shows the subject line of the email that’s been opened and the recipient’s name

^Yesware Desktop Notification

2. Gmail Activity Feed: Get Actionable Data to Follow-Up Smarter

Yesware also has an Activity Feed that makes tracking data more actionable.

Within the Activity Feed, you can also click into a message to see the expanded message view so that you can view the full context of an email exchange:

Senior Content Marketing Specialist at Yesware.

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